X-File DF1013209: The Walking Dead
by thexxit
Summary: For the Nursery Files Halloween Crossover Challenge. They knew something terrible was going to happen in 2012, they just didn't bargain on this.


Title: X-File DF1013209: The Walking Dead  
Author: thexxit  
Crossover: X-Files/The Walking Dead  
Rating: Mild PG-13 for some slightly bad words.  
Spoilers: You should have knowledge of X-Files up to the end of season 9 (ignoring the crazy William storyline), no need to know about the movie, IWTB. I don't think there are spoilers for the Walking Dead, but you should have seen up to the end of season 4 to be sure.  
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and I can only wish I were making some money off of this.

Summary: For the Nursery Files Halloween Crossover Challenge. They knew something terrible was going to happen in 2012, they just didn't bargain on this.

Author's note: This takes place after the disastrous alien takeover in 2012 in the X-Files world (as foretold in "The Truth"). **However, I have tweaked the timeline a bit, a little poetic license to make it all fit. In 2012, William is a bit over a year old**. Also in 2012, we are after the prison has fallen in TWD; let's put this around Season 5, Episode 2, titled "Strangers."

I highly recommend checking out the X-Files Nursery Files at Mulder's Creek (I think you can just google it, it'll show up). There are some awesome stories there, and some awesome challenges too.

* * *

The world had turned to shit after the alien virus, just not in the ways previously anticipated. Mulder was sure that no one in the consortium had ever seen Dawn of the Dead, and perhaps that's why no one anticipated this outcome.  
The virus was tested, that was true. He and Scully had both been exposed in various forms, however, despite the number of people abducted, one factor remained unchecked: a mutation.

Scully had her theories, and for once, he could agree with her sound, scientific reasoning. Someone infected did not exhibit the symptoms they were supposed to. Something went wrong, and instead of the alien virus taking hold of the host body and reproducing, the host died. If only that was where the story ended, perhaps there would have been an eventual winner, the aliens or the humans. However, the death of that original host did not last long. The virus triggered something, which caused certain critical areas of the brain to reactivate after death, such as basic motor skills, and of course, the need for food. Scully compares it to something like meningitis, which passes through the blood into the brain. Once one was infected, he bit another, and they bit two more and on and on until they got the mess they were now faced with.

Mulder once joked with Scully about zombies needing to meet basic biological needs. Eating was one, but later came the other basic biological need of sex. He hadn't seen one doing the horizontal mambo yet. He'd be sure to point it out to Scully if he did, though she probably wouldn't laugh. She'd just pray they couldn't reproduce.

Mulder had no doubt that Scully could have done a thorough investigation on not only what caused the virus to behave as it had, turning the majority of the population into brain dead walkers, but given even the most rudimentary tools, she could have found a cure, or at maybe a prevention. They could be a team of walker killers and healers, moving around the country and dispensing their cure while killing of the undead without breaking a sweat. They'd seen a lot during the X-Files. A few thousand zombies wasn't much.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, they had a little issue to contend with. Their son, William, a helpless child of just over a year, demanded all of their attention, and Mulder and Scully were only too happy to oblige. Sometimes Mulder thought William was the only thing that kept Scully happy. Having to stab your own mother through the skull had a way of disturbing a person.

"Nine o'clock, on your left," he said to her as they walked through the woods. They'd been walking for ages, due south. Despite the consideration that the biters may not do well in the cold, the fact was, neither did William. The bees weren't a worry, they had long since died off. And so far, the walkers they could handle.

"Nice one," he said as she jammed her axe into the zombie's skull. She grunted in frustration as she attempted to yank the weapon out after having it wedged inside the biter's brain.

"I need something else, Mulder," she complained, finally placing her foot on the fallen walkers head and dislodging her axe. "It seems like an effective weapon, but it's not. It keeps getting stuck."

"Well, what do you need?" he asked. They had guns, many in fact, with lots of ammunition, all in the backpack now on her back. He carried William in a front facing carrier on his chest. They took turns, one keeping watch for harm, and one keeping watch over William. They worked well as a team that way.

"I need something smoother. I don't know what. But if we're surrounded by a bunch of these damn things I'll have no choice but to pull out my gun."

He knew that a gun was not a good idea. They'd learned the hard way that noise brought more of them, many more. They worked hard not to allow William to cry, and he was very glad that Scully was still able to breastfeed. It worked when he was hungry and sleepy.

"Hey, want to try and catch some squirrel?"

"I hate squirrel. Just because we're in the south doesn't mean we have to eat like the locals," she grumbled.

"No bee pollen in yogurt around here, Scully," he said.

"I don't need bee pollen, Mulder," she said, grunting as she hit into another walker. "I need a cheeseburger, with fries and a vanilla milkshake."

"Wow, Scully. Think of the calories, the sugar, the 'bad' fats."

"I don't care," she said, grunting again as she struck another in the head and wrestled with the axe to get it free. "Mulder, is it my imagination, or are there a lot of these things around here."

Mulder paused a bit to take in stock. With a quick look around him to make sure he wasn't surprised, he noticed that there were quite a few heading towards them. Even through the trees he could see them.

"Shit, Scully. I think this is a group of them or something."

Despite the slow way they moved, the sheer number would make it difficult to take them all down, even without William. However, with their little baby, it was dangerous to run. A fall would be disastrous, and William's cries would only bring on more of these monsters.

"Oh, God, Mulder, look!" Scully pointed towards a slight clearing where hundreds, maybe even thousands of deformed creatures were shuffling their way towards them. A quick look behind, and Mulder realized they may be trapped. A moment of panic swept through him, as he pulled out his gun and clutched William closer.

"The tree," Scully whispered fiercely, pointing to a rather sturdy looking tree with many branches. He'd never seen one of these things climb, but in any case, it was their only choice.

"Go," he said, and held his gun out as he knocked off a few of the undead. His silencer did a decent enough job of quieting the noise. He followed Scully closely, keeping their precious cargo between their bodies. As Scully dropped her back pack and scrambled up high enough, he took over cover, knocking out the bodies as they came too close.

"Give me William," she said when she was high enough. He quickly passed the baby to her, and she held him securely while shooting so that Mulder would have time to get up the tree. "Come on," she urged him.

"I can't," he said, shooting at a fast rate. "There's too many. Are you high enough?"

"I'm fine. Come on."

At that point, William began to cry.

At the sound, any zombie that was passing by diverted their path towards the noise. "Shit, shit, shit," Mulder cried as he aimed and fired on instinct. Having FBI training was a great benefit in this world, but nothing could ever prepare them for this. For all his desires to be proven right, Mulderý wished he had been wrong, and there were no such thing as monsters, just bad people.

XxX

"Mulder!" Scully cried, and he whipped his head around to see two of the decaying corpses within arms reach. He kicked them back, the bodies falling like dominos, giving Scully opportunity to take them out. If this continued, however they would run out of ammo in no time, and their bag of backups was laying on the ground, too far to risk grabbing.

"Mulder tell me how to help you," Scully said. He knew Scully to be the most calm, adaptable person in the world. Times of high stress made her more resolute, but he heard the quake in her voice, the desperation.

"Don't choose me," was all he told her. "Choose William."

They continued to fight, and Mulder was the first to run out of bullets as William screeched louder and attracted more of them. Mulder grabbed the tiny gun strapped to his leg, and got off six shots before it, too, was spent.

"Mulder come on!" Scully cried. "You take William, I have another gun, I can hold them -"

"No! Stay there!" Mulder lunged forward, slashing and stabbing with his knife, punching and kicking anything that came too close. He heard the whiz of bullets as Scully tried to stop more from overwhelming him. Mulder concentrated on William's cries, knowing that he had a very important reason to live. His exhaustion was getting to him, though, and his muscles cried out with every puncture he made into the skull of the biters. He was covered in guts and slime, and he had to rub it away from his eyes.

"I'm out," he heard her sob, "oh god, Mulder, I'm out."

He couldn't do it. There were too many, coming too fast. As soon as one dropped, another took its place. He wanted to tell Scully he loved her. He wanted to tell William that he was proud to be his father, that he knew he would grow up to be the bright, happy young man Mulder never was. He wanted to, but he couldn't, because he couldn't catch his breath from all the fighting, and he couldn't let Scully know he was giving up.

*Whack!*

He tried to turn to the noise, but couldn't loose focus. Another whack, then he heard walkers falling. They were falling before they got to him!

"Help!" Scully was shouting. "Please, help him!"

Finally the swarm slowed. Mulder shoved his knife into the eye socket of the last walker, and was able to look around. There were two people, a man and a woman, one with a crossbow and a knife, and one with just a knife. They were taking them down, effortlessly, smoothly, with the precision of a well skilled team. Just like he and Scully. They reminded him of himself and Scully, not needing words, just doing, intuitively knowing the right balance.

When it finally calmed, there were bodies everywhere. At least sixty, if not more, thirty or so piled around his feet. He took a shaky breath, letting his hands rest on his knees as he doubled over, fighting to catch his breath. He heard William still crying.

"It's okay, son," he huffed, gasping for air. "It's okay now."

"Mulder," Scully said, suddenly behind him and rubbing his back. "Are you okay?"

"Scully," he breathed. "Get the pack, the guns. Why did you come down? Is it safe?"

"It's safe," she said, and spoke to the two strangers. "I don't know how thank you," she said. "You saved our lives."

"Heard the baby," the man said. Mulder looked up to take in his form. He looked like a leftover biker, jeans and biker boots, denim jacket with leather sleeves and scraggly hair with a beard. His companion looked quite a bit better. Safer.

"We don't have anything to offer," he said quickly.

"We don't need anything," said the woman. "Are you okay?"

He looked at her closely. He remembered he wasn't supposed to trust anyone, however, these two did step in to a group of flesh eating zombies for him, so he was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"We're okay. Mulder, are you hurt?" Scully asked.

"No. No, just… tired." He stood, and the muscles of his shoulders and back protested. "If I'd known the apocalypse was coming, I'd have worked on strengthening my core a bit more."

He wasn't expecting a laugh, he rarely got one from Scully from one of his jokes, but the biker man huffed out a kind of chuckle.

"What are you doing out here?" Mulder asked them.

"Getting water. There's a creek just over there. What are you doing?"

"Trying to find someplace safe," he said. "Have you been around here long?"

"Yeah. Whole place is fuck'd up. Ya ain't gonna find no where safe."

"I'm Carol," the woman said, holding out her hand. Scully shook it. Mulder couldn't move his arms.

"I'm Dana, this is Fox. And this little sad one is William, our son."

"How long ya been out here?" the man asked.

"We walked from D.C.," Mulder said, rotating his shoulders.

"D.C.?" Carol asked. "How is it there?"

"Horrible. The entire thing is gone. When we left, the White House was burning to the ground. No one knew where the president or the first family was. The vice president is dead, so are a lot of top officials. Either that, or they've disappeared. Nothing is left."

"Nothing?" Carol asked. "What… what did you two do, before…?"

"We were in the FBI," Scully said, rocking William to calm him. "Believe me, we had access to a lot of information. Not much survived in D.C."

"Shit," the man said.

"The CDC," Scully began, "is it…."

"Blown to bits," the man said. "Like I said, ain't nothin' much left. How many walkers have you killed?"

"These things?" Mulder said, "Hundreds. Jesus, you just saw me kill twenty or thirty."

"How many people?"

"What is this, twenty questions? When is it my turn?"

"Jus' answer the damn question."

"I've killed plenty. We've killed plenty."

"Why?"

"It was our damn job! We were in the FBI. We killed monsters that were human, and some that weren't. Now, all we do is kill these creatures. It's the same damn thing!"

The man was silent. William started to whimper at his father's outburst.

"We have a group," Carol said, softly, calmingly. "We have a baby, too. Maybe we can help. Stick together, even if just for a little while. There's safety in numbers. We've got some food, guns."

"A place to sleep?" Mulder asked.

"No," she shook her head. "We lost that. There are still human monsters out here, Fox."

He didn't bother correcting her on his name. He didn't think they would stay with this group long. Maybe enough to recuperate, maybe eat something better than rat or squirrel or whatever tiny animal he managed to get, then they'd be on their way.

"How many of you are there?" he heard Scully ask.

"'Bout ten," the man answered. "Y'all might as well join us for a bit. Ya got a baby and all. We've got diapers, baby food and shit."

"Okay," Scully decided. "As long as we can keep our weapons."

"Keep 'em," he said, "never know when 'nother herd'll attack. Name's Daryl." He stuck his dirty hand out, and Mulder shook it.

As they walked behind their new friends, freshly filled bottles of water in their arms, Mulder whispered to Scully, "Do you think we can trust them?"

"They saved your life, Mulder. They saved all of us. I think we have no choice."

"What happened to trust no one?"

"All bets are off. The impossible has happened. The dead came alive, Mulder."

"This is what it takes for you to believe me," he said, taking William from her. As they walked to a clearing, they heard a group of people laughing before they saw them.

"We brought a new couple," Carol said.

A man in a dirty police uniform and a thick beard turned around. "Welcome," he said. "Name's Rick. You look like you could use a rest."


End file.
